


If Memories Are Shadows, We’d Best Not Waste the Light

by sovvannight



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Backstory, Elementary School, F/M, Hospitalization, Major Character Injury, Major Illness, POV Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24383242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sovvannight/pseuds/sovvannight
Summary: While visiting his mother in the hospital, nine-year-old Stiles meets a girl recovering from a car accident.
Relationships: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is me trying to come up with a headcanon for two issues. 
> 
> First, why is Lydia also a year behind in school? They don't talk about it in the show, even when it would be natural to do so given Allison's embarrassment over her birthday, but we know she is. You'd normally turn 16 sophomore year, but we see Lydia driving early in season 1, implying she's already 16, and then she has a birthday like a month later while still in the spring of sophomore year. And of course, her mom flat-out says she's turning 18 soon in season 4, and that's spring of junior year when she should be turning 17. 
> 
> Second, why are her parents totally shocked to hear that Lydia is smart? Normally you'd think even the most self-absorbed parents would have some sort of sense of their child's intelligence, or at least a memory of past report cards, or something. So then I got to thinking, what if she wasn't always the best student? What if something happened to interfere with her normal intelligence, something that healed so gradually that her parents didn't notice, something that caused her to be held back a grade at some point? And if my headcanon allows me to play around with themes of memory and being forgotten, which are so important to Teen Wolf, so much the better.
> 
> Title from Marianas Trench's Forget Me Not, which is thematically relevant, let's say.

_March 2004_

Stiles jogged alongside his mother’s wheelchair, which was being pushed by a nurse. Stiles’s dad walked on the other side, holding on to her hand to comfort her. 

She was back at the hospital for more tests—she’d been sick for as long as Stiles could remember, but lately she seemed worse. She’d been forgetting what she was saying in the middle of a sentence, burning dinner because she forgot to set a timer, yelling at him—well, more than usual, because it’s not like he never got in trouble before, but she was madder, and yelled louder. 

She’d been in the hospital for three days this time while they tried some different medicine to make her better. Nobody had said anything to Stiles, but he could tell it wasn’t working. She was still confused more often than not when he visited after school—sometimes she didn’t know who he was at all, or she expected him to be younger than he was. She cried a lot, or yelled, and she scared him a little.

Now they were on the way to take pictures of Mom’s brain to see if there had been any changes in the past month, since the last time they’d taken that route.

When they reached the room labeled Imaging, his dad told him, “Go ahead and sit out here and wait where it’s quieter, OK, Stiles? Maybe you can work on your homework.”

“OK,” he agreed, but he knew he probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate; he was just too worried. He rooted through his backpack, looking for something to occupy himself with, ending up with a math worksheet. He was finishing up when motion at the end of the hall caught his eye. It was Mrs. McCall, Scott’s mom, pushing a kid in a wheelchair.

The person in the wheelchair was a girl about his age, he could see when they got closer. She was very pale, and her head was wrapped in bandages covering her hair. She had a black eye, some cuts and scrapes, and her right arm and right leg were both in casts.

“Woah, what happened to you?”

The girl said, “I was in a car accident. Do I know you?”

He thought at first she was being stuck up, but her expression looked confused and a little scared. “No, we don’t know each other, but your nurse is my best friend’s mom. Hi, Mrs. McCall. I’m Stiles.” He held out a hand for her to shake, but realized she couldn’t with her right arm in a sling, so he switched to an awkward wave.

She frowned. “What kind of name is that?”

“Uh, it’s a nickname. My last name is Stilinski. So Stiles, see? My first name is just weird, and nobody can pronounce it.”

“Oh. I’m Lydia.”

Mrs. McCall broke in. “Stiles, are you waiting for your parents?”

“Yeah, Mom is in getting an MRI.”

“Ah. How would you feel about keeping Lydia company while I check on them and see how much longer it will be? Is that OK with you, Lydia? Stiles can come get me if you need anything.”

“OK.”

Mrs. McCall handed Lydia a spiral notebook with a red cover. “Remember, your notebook is here if you have questions about what’s going on.” She stepped through the same door his parents has used earlier, leaving Stiles and Lydia alone.

Stiles asked, “Where do you go to school? You’re not at Beacon Hills Elementary, I don’t think, or at least I don’t remember seeing you. Unless you’re not in third grade? You look like you’re my age.”

Lydia bit her lip. “I go to the Gunderson Academy in San Francisco; that’s where we live, we were just here visiting my aunt and uncle and cousins. I…I was in the fourth grade.”

“Was? Isn’t someone bringing you your homework? My friend Scott was in the hospital in December and I brought his schoolwork to him.” He had a sudden, horrifying realization. “You…you’re alone. Are your parents…were they in the car with you?”

Her face crumpled and two tears slid down her cheeks. “My Mom. She’s in a coma. Dad is spending most of his time with her. But anyway, there’s no point in my doing schoolwork because I wouldn’t remember it the next day. I’d just have to do the same lessons over and over without learning anything. I used to be good at school, but now my head is broken.”

“I forget things sometimes, too, but it’s because I have ADHD. Do they have medicine you can take?”

“I don’t know.” She opened the notebook and flipped through the pages, squinting at whatever was written on them. “This says I have a skull fracture and swelling. They think I’ll be better when the fracture heals and the swelling decreases but that could be several weeks from now.” She looked up and waved her pad. “See, I have to write things down or I forget, even from this morning.”

“So, if I came and visited you tomorrow you wouldn’t remember me?”

“Nope. I have to ask the nurses what their names are every day. And I have a roommate, another girl who’s in the hospital, and her name is…crap.”

Stiles goggled a little at the curse word coming out of this sweet-looking girl’s mouth as she flipped through the pad. 

“Destiny. Her name is Destiny. Right.” 

“Can you write me down on your pad? I could come visit you—I’m here all the time because my mom is sick.’”

“Sure.” She fished a pen out of the sling, a glittery pink one that someone must’ve bought just for her because it seemed to suit her personality. She flipped to an empty page and balanced it on her lap. “Styles. Met getting…what test am I supposed to be getting?”

“Probably an MRI. And it’s Stiles with an I. You’re really doing a good job of writing with your left hand.”

“Well, I’m left-handed, that’s kind of how it works.”

“Oh. Now I feel like a dumbass,” he said, daring the curse word, and she snickered in response.

“Well, left-handed people are rare and unique, so it was an honest mistake,” she said with a toss of her head. “OK, Stiles with an I, so you’re a way to climb over a fence?”

“What?”

“That’s what a stile is, with an I—look it up in a dictionary.”

“I mean, it’s just the beginning of my last name. Not really a deeper meaning than that.”

“What’s your real first name?”

He ducked his head. “I’d rather not say. It’s dumb. It was my grandpa’s name, you know, from the old country, not a normal name. I’ll just stick with Stiles.”

She smiled winsomely at him, and he noticed her dimples for the first time. “But if you tell me, I won’t remember tomorrow, so what do you have to lose?”

He groaned. “Fine, you win. It’s Mieczyslaw.”

She laughed. “OK, wow, yeah, let’s stick with Stiles.” She set her pen back to the paper. “Dark-haired, third-grader, kept me company waiting for my test, mom is in the hospital so he might visit. That it?”

“Guess so.” He was staring, but he couldn’t seem to help it. There was just something about her. “I don’t think I know anyone with green eyes or anyone left-handed. Lydia, you are unique.”

She preened. “Why, thank you!”

“What color is your hair under there?”

“Under where?” She touched her head. “Where…where is my hair?” Her eyes widened as she patted her head in various places. “Ouch, that hurts!”

“Lydia,” Stiles said slowly, “did you forget you were in a car accident? It’s right there on your pad. You have…brain swelling and I forget what else.”

“Oh.” She looked lost as she flipped through the pad. “Right. It says so right here. Oh, look, it says they had to cut my hair short but it’s OK, it’ll grow back, and I won’t have much of a scar on my head. Um, my hair is strawberry blonde.”

He laughed. “That’s not a hair color.”

She scowled. “It is so.”

“I think your brain is malfunctioning. Is it blonde? Red? Brown? Purple?” He laughed.

“It’s…blondish red. Or reddish blonde. Strawberry blonde. It’s a real thing. I’m not making it up!”

“OK, OK, I believe you,” he reassured her, trying to calm her down. “I’m a guy, what do I know about girls and their hair, anyway? Strawberry blonde. I’m sure it’s a thing. The only person I know with red hair is Ronnie Farrell, and his hair is the exact same color as a carrot. It’s really red.”

“Mine isn’t like that. It’s like my mom’s, and like my grandma’s was.”

“Do you identify with the Weasleys, since your hair is reddish?”

“Sure. Hermione’s my favorite, though. You probably like Harry the best, don’t you?”

“I guess. Who wouldn’t want to fly around on a broom and do magic? I’m not even very good at soccer, though. I’m pretty sure I would kill myself the first time I played Quidditch.”

They got to talking about Harry Potter, and then other books they’d both read. Lydia remembered everything from before the accident just fine and seemed to know a lot about all sorts of things, but maybe that was just because she was a year ahead of him in school. And she’d just turned ten, which he wouldn’t be for another 8 months.

Before he realized that much time had passed at all, his dad was wheeling his mom out into the hall. “All done? Did the doctors tell you if the test looked better? Is the medicine working? Is—” He caught sight of his dad’s grim expression and stopped midsentence. “Oh. It’s not good news.”

His dad tried to smile, but he could tell it was fake. “We need to talk to the neurologist and see what she has to say. And if the current medicine isn’t working we’ll just try something else, right?” He patted his wife on the shoulder. She, in turn, was staring at Stiles. “Shouldn’t you be in school, my little Mischief?”

“School got out for the day, remember? I saw you earlier.”

“Oh, of course. And who is this?” She gestured toward Lydia, who was watching them and looking puzzled.

“Lydia, this is my mom, and my dad. This is Lydia…you didn’t ever say your last name.”

“Martin. So I don’t know them?”

“No.”

Her expression cleared. “Oh, good, because I was trying to remember them and couldn’t. And you’re…Stiles, right?”

“Right.”

Mrs. McCall poked her head out of the room. “Lydia, are you ready for your MRI?”

“I guess so.”

As Mrs. McCall wheeled Lydia into the room, Stiles called out, “Good luck!”

“Thanks!” she called back, and then the door shut behind them.

Stiles asked his mom, “Have you ever heard of strawberry blonde hair?”

“Of course, my friend Natalie Fontaine used to call her hair strawberry blonde in high school. Red, but not a bright red, right?”

Noah asked, “Was that her daughter? Wasn’t her daughter’s name something like Lydia?”

“If it was, then your friend is here in the hospital. They were in a car accident.”

“Oh, we should go visit her, Noah,” Stiles’s mom said. “I want to see if she’s gotten her dress for the winter formal yet.”

“Uh, sure,” he replied, looking grim because this was the most confused and forgetful she’d ever been. “Let’s get you back to your room to rest, first.”

Stiles scrambled to gather up his things and follow. All of the worry Lydia had distracted him from came roaring back, and for a moment he wondered what would happen if his mom just didn’t _get_ better. What if she stopped remembering him altogether?


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles rode his bike to hospital after school as he’d done every day that week. His mom had come home the day after the unsuccessful MRI, but was back a few days later—she’d gotten more and more confused every day, and the final straw was when she’d found the keys to the jeep his dad had hidden, gone for a drive, and gotten lost. They were at the point where they were trying to figure out if there was anything that the doctors could do for her, or if they were going to have to send her to a nursing home, one with something called a ‘memory unit’ that treated people like her.

Stiles chained his bike up to the bike rack and rode the elevator up to the third floor where his mom's room was located. As he approached her door he heard her shouting something about aliens. He stepped into the room gingerly, dreading seeing her upset. When his mother saw him, she pointed and screamed, “That’s one of them. He’s here to kill me!” She cowered against Noah, who looked as dismayed as Stiles felt.

“I’ll just go visit Lydia, OK?”

His dad nodded. “She’s having a bad day.”

Stiles backed away and took the elevator up to Pediatrics. He'd been there to visit Lydia a couple of times, even once when his mom was at home, so the nurse recognized him and waved him through. 

Lydia was sitting in her wheelchair, staring down at a book. She was looking better—her head was still bandaged, but the cuts and bruises on her face and arms were mostly healed. As usual, she didn’t recognize him at first. “I’m Stiles. I’m a new friend. I’m in your book—check page 4.”

She flipped through and found the page. “What kind of name is Stiles? A way to cross a fence?”

He sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I looked it up in the dictionary. It’s the first half of my last name, Stilinski.”

“Oh, there you are.” Lydia read from her notebook. “ ‘Stiles, third-grader, dark hair.’ That sounds like you, although I suppose it could be a lot of people.”

“It’s him,” her roommate Destiny called out from the other side of the room.

“Hey, Destiny, how are you feeling today?” Stiles asked.

“Better. I might get to go home in a few more days! Hey, I should take your picture.”

“Huh?”

She got up from where she was sitting and used her crutches to walk toward them, holding a disposable camera. “Show him, Lydia. It’s in the middle drawer.”

Lydia pulled a few sheets of construction paper out of one of the drawers in the table next to her bed. “Oh, yeah. Destiny made me a little guide—here’s me with the morning shift nurses, me with the evening nurses, me with Destiny, me with…” she peered at the sheet more closely. “That’s me with Katie and Hannah, who are in the room across from ours. We should probably add you to it since my brain’s not getting any better.”

Stiles tried to reassure her. “When we met you said they told you it could take a few weeks.”

“It’s been a few weeks…hasn’t it?”

“Well, I guess, but don’t give up yet. Your mom woke up and is getting better, right? What have the doctors said lately?”

“I don’t know! I can’t remember!” she shouted. He took a step back, and she immediately apologized. “I’m sorry, I’m just so frustrated. I hate not being, I don’t know, normal.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you were always, uh, unusual. But in a good way! You know what I mean.”

“I’d settle for completely average right now, really.”

“I think you need a distraction. You want me to read to you? You want to help me with my homework? You guys want to play a board game?”

Destiny said, “I’m going to physical therapy at 3:30, which is, like, now, so you guys do whatever.”

“Let’s do your homework,” Lydia said. “That’ll make me feel smart, because I remember third grade.”

“Oh, wait, picture first though. Here, Lydia, can you wheel yourself closer? Perfect. And then Stiles, I don’t know, just bend down or something so that you’ll fit in the picture together.” When they arranged themselves to Destiny’s liking, she said, “Say cheese,” and then took a few pictures. “I’m going to take some pictures at physical therapy and at dinner and then give it to my mom to develop, so we’ll have it back before I get out of here.”

A nurse came then to help Destiny shift to a wheelchair, and then she wheeled her out to go to her physical therapy appointment, leaving Stiles and Lydia alone.

They started with his math homework, which was honestly kind of easy but he let Lydia help because it made her feel good, and it got done quicker that way. Then, she drilled him on his vocabulary list for the test on Friday for a while. They were moving on to thinking about ideas for a social studies paper he needed to write when a man walked into the room.

“Dad!” Lydia exclaimed.

“How are you doing, princess?” he asked.

“I’m OK. You know Stiles, right?”

Stiles stood up to shake his hand. “No, we haven’t met. I’m Stiles Stilinski. I’m, uh, a friend of your daughter.”

“Oh, I remember that name, Noah and Claudia’s son, right? I think we actually did meet, but you were only maybe two or three. Your parents were friends with my wife back when they were in school together. We’ve got some pictures of you and Lydia as babies somewhere. We just haven’t made it back to Beacon Hills much lately, not while I’ve been trying to make partner at the firm. Long hours and not a lot of time for the trip up from San Francisco.

“And now the one time we make it back for my brother’s birthday, we end up in this mess. At least it’s looking like we’re going to get a nice settlement out of it, and I got to reconnect with my old friends from Devenford Prep.”

“How’s Mom doing?” Lydia asked.

“Better every day, sweetheart. In fact, I’m thinking maybe we should go back to San Francisco. What do you think, do you want to go home? I’m thinking you both might get better treatment there—Jim knows one of the neurologists at Stanford Medical. Maybe you both would be better off with a bigger hospital and more specialists. And I’m sure your friends from school would visit.”

“I guess that would be nice. I’d know who they were, at least,” she said with an eye roll.

“Well, if Stiles is keeping you entertained, here, I’m going to get back to your mother.”

“Um, tell her I said hi. She’s, she remembers me, right?”

“Of course. She misses you, but she’s glad to hear you’re getting better, at least in terms of your broken bones. And your shiner’s nearly healed.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot I had a black eye.”

He bent over and kissed her on the forehead. “I’m going to head back to your mother, but I’ll stop by again after dinner, OK?”

“OK.”

“Nice meeting you, Stiles,” he said with a nod in Stiles’s direction.

When her dad left, she told Stiles, “I went down to see her today. They didn’t let me stay long. She’s…she’s in bed, can’t get up—she broke both legs, but it also seems like she’s not, I don’t know, coordinated? Like she reached for a cup and she knocked it over, her hand was shaking so bad—”

“Lydia!” Stiles said. “Do you realize what you just did?”

“What?”

“You remembered something from earlier in the day! That was a few hours ago, wasn’t it? But you still know what happened?”

“I do! Oh, maybe I am getting better!” She beamed at him, and he hugged her impulsively.

“See, you’re going to be fine.”

“I guess I am. And…suddenly I’m exhausted.”

“Well, why don’t I read to you, then? You can just sit back and listen. I have to admit I’m kind of curious about what happens to Luke and Jen next.”

“Sure, that’d be nice. I don’t remember where we’re at. Did you bookmark the place you left off…it sounds like you read to me before?”

“Yeah, because it gives you a headache if you do it too long, and you have trouble focusing on the words because I guess the head injury is making your vision blurry. I don’t know if you remember, but we’re reading _The Shadow Children_ because you remember it from before the accident, so even if you don’t remember me reading it to you, you can still pick up wherever I start.”

“OK.” She leaned her head back against the headrest and prepared herself to listen to him read, and he was struck, as he often was, just how pretty she was. It was more noticeable now that the cuts and bruises were healing, and weren’t there to distract from how smooth and soft her skin looked. He hoped there was a funny part in the next few chapters—he liked seeing her dimples when she smiled.

“Stiles?” She was looking at him curiously and gestured toward the book in his lap.

“Right, we’re reading.” He cracked open the book to where he’d placed the bookmark a few days earlier when he’d last visited and started reading. He kept to an even tone—he wasn’t going to try and act out the voices for all the characters or anything like that—and every once in a while he had to stop and ask Lydia how to pronounce a word. She didn’t always know, which he found a little gratifying. It was good that you didn’t learn everything there was to know by three-fourths of the way through fourth grade.

After a couple of chapters, he noticed Lydia looking down at the floor, appearing to be lost in thought. “Do…do you have something you want to talk about?” he asked.

“I’m just worried. I think I’m probably going to fail fourth grade if I don’t get better soon. What if people make fun of me at school? And all my friends will be a grade ahead of me, and I’ll be stuck with…I was going to say babies, uh, no offense.”

“I’m totally offended!” he said in mock outrage, and she smiled in response. “Maybe it will be cool to be the smartest kid in class, though.”

“But I was already the smartest kid in class! What if I’m not, anymore?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t worry about something that hasn’t happened yet? You’ve got plenty of time to recover before school starts next fall. Couldn’t you go to summer school, or something?”

She grimaced. “I don’t know if my school even _has_ summer school. Would I have to go to public school or something?”

“Well, I go to public school, and it’s not so bad.”

“Sure, sure, I don’t mean to sound like a snob. I probably am a snob.”

“That’s OK, you’ve got a few good qualities that make up for it,” he said, and she stuck out her tongue at him in response. “It’s really giving me hope, that you remembered something from this morning. My mom…I stopped by her room first today, and she was just really having a bad day. She thought…she was afraid of me. She said I was an alien there to kill her. I…I’m worried she won’t get better, too.

“I overheard my dad talking to the doctor, and he was recommending that mom go to a nursing home. But that’s for old people, isn’t it? And that doesn’t sound like someplace you go if you’re trying to get better. That sounds…that sounds like someplace you go permanently, until, until you…die.” He said the last words softly, like he was afraid to even voice the possibility.

Lydia reached out and squeezed his hand. “I’m sure she’ll get better. I’m getting better, and my mom is, too. They probably just have to try different things to see what helps.” He squeezed her hand in return and they sat there for a moment while Stiles tried to regain his composure because he didn’t want to cry in front of her.

“Stiles?” They both looked up to see his dad standing in the doorway.

“Hey, Dad. Come say hi to Lydia.”

He stepped into the room. “Hello, Lydia. Oh, were you two working on homework? That’s good.”

“Yeah. I finished math and vocab.”

“Good. Good.” He rocked back on his heels. “How are you feeling today, honey?”

“OK,” Lydia said. “I remembered something, earlier, so I might be getting better.”

Stiles said, “I met Mr. Martin earlier. He said he knew you. He said Lydia and I met when we were babies.”

“Yeah, of course I know Brad. Your mom and Natalie, Mrs. Martin, were friends in school. They moved to San Francisco after college, though.”

“We might be going back soon,” Lydia said. “Mom’s getting better, too. I saw her this morning. And I still remember!” she added triumphantly.

“See, Dad, sometimes people get better when their brains don’t work.”

His dad smiled, but still looked sad. “Maybe so. We should be heading home soon.”

Stiles nodded and packed up his books. “I’ll see you soon, Lydia.” A nurse came in to check on her, and he and Lydia waved to each other as he left.

When he and his dad walked out of the hospital doors, Stiles went to get his bike while his dad pulled the car around so he could put it in the back. The drive home was mostly silent—Stiles was afraid to ask questions because he just wasn’t sure he wanted to know what the doctors had said after seeing his mom’s condition today. 

His dad helped him get his bike out of the car and into the garage. Stiles dumped his bag by the foot of the stairs to carry up to his room later, and then they both headed to the kitchen to come up with something for dinner, probably sandwiches again, because Mom was usually the one to cook.

“Stiles,” his dad said hesitantly. “We need to talk about your mother. I had another talk today with her doctors, and they’re not…not hopeful.”

* * * * *

Two days after his last visit with Lydia and the devastating conversation with his dad, his mom was getting another MRI when he arrived after school, so he went upstairs to talk to Lydia. When he got there, though, her half of the room was empty. Destiny saw him hesitating in the doorway and called out, “Hey, Stiles! Lydia left this morning. Did you know that was happening?”

“No. Like, left-left? Back to San Francisco?”

“Yeah, that’s what her dad said. Her mom was going by ambulance, but Lydia got released and is just going to go home, and her dad is going to have a nurse come and take care of her. And she has to go to the hospital sometimes for evaluation.”

“Oh.” He felt a crushing sense of loss. He’d wanted to talk to her again about his mom, and see how she was doing, and how her mom was doing. And now he’d never see her again unless they came back to visit and he managed to find out about it somehow.

“Hey, do you want your picture?” She picked up an envelope from her bedside table and held it out to him. “I took a couple. Here, look through and pick whichever one you think turned out the best.”

He took the envelope from her and flipped through the pictures inside. In the first one of him and Lydia she had her eyes closed, the second was OK, but in the third one she was smiling, dimples on display. “That’s the one. Thanks for this. Um, do you want some company?”

“Sure. Do you want to play a game?”

“OK. I’ll go look and see what they have out on the shelves.” He carefully tucked the picture into his backpack. He’d miss Lydia, a lot, but he was glad she and her mom were improved enough to go home.

* * * * *

_August 2004_

Today was the first day of fourth grade, and it was hitting Stiles all over again that his mom was not going to get better. He’d had to tell his dad that he was supposed to take a ‘first day of school’ picture, and Stiles had tried to smile in it but he knew he wasn’t very successful. 

His dad had driven him to school in his squad car and would pick him up after school and take him to the hospital. They were at the point where they were trying to spend as much time as they could with her as possible, because they knew that someday soon she would be gone.

When he walked onto the playground where the students gathered before school started, his best friend Scott took one look at him and gave him a hug. “You miss your mom, don’t you?”

“Yeah. We’ll go see her after school, but it’s not the same.”

As they walked toward where the other fourth-graders were gathered, dodging kids from the younger grades who were playing tag, Stiles asked, “So, anything new with anyone from our grade?”

“Uh, Megan’s parents got divorced, oh, so did Ryan’s parents and he moved with his mom to Seattle, so he won’t be back. Ronnie arrived wearing some ridiculous $100 tennis shoes; his dad got a big bonus or something. There’s a new girl, seems to be popular already, or at least some of the popular girls kind of latched on to her, so I guess that’s good for her.”

Stiles could see the clump of girls over near the picnic benches, but he couldn’t see anyone he didn’t already know. Then he caught a flash of…was that…blondish-red hair, or maybe reddish-blonde? 

He moved toward the girls, ignoring Scott’s protest because they usually stayed far away from the girls, who could get mean quickly in a large group like this. His heart lifted when he heard a familiar voice saying, “So, my dad sued the pants off the company of the truck that hit us, and he decided to take a job here and buy a house with the money, so here we are. We have a pool, which is so cool because we barely had a back yard at all in San Francisco.”

“Lydia!” he said, and the group of girls parted to reveal her leaning against the table. Her hair was a short cap of bright hair held back by a headband, the casts were off her arm and leg, and she looked completely adorable.

“Do I know you?” She looked wary, and the other girls in the group bristled defensively.

“We met in the hospital. Uh, I’m glad you’re better. I’m Stiles, remember?” 

She frowned. “Sorry, no, and what kind of name is that, anyway? You’re a ladder—”

“—over a fence,” he finished with her. “You said that before.” 

“Well, sorry, but I don’t remember you. Thanks for the well-wishes, though, I guess.” She turned her attention back to the girls surrounding her. “Anyway, we have a huge back yard, so I’m hoping I can convince them to get me a dog since there’ll be room for it to run around.”

He backed away, rejoining Scott, who had been hovering at the edge of the group. 

“That’s the girl from the hospital?” he asked.

Stiles suspected he was grinning like a fool, but he didn’t care in the slightest. “Yeah, that’s Lydia Martin, the girl I’m completely and utterly in love with. Someday, I’ll get her to talk to me again—I don’t care how long it takes. I just need to come up with a plan.”


End file.
